“Well,” said Danny, “don’t kill yourself about it. Maybe you can help me with my other problem—my case, the murders of the Bakers and Olittah Reese. All of the victims were light-skinned blacks, and I have this nasty feeling that it means something.”
Marshall was quiet as he looked back at him. Danny searched for that hurt look he’d seen with Erik and Janis, but it wasn’t there. All he saw in his eyes was concern.
“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” said Marshall.
“Maybe, but I think it means something, and so does the FBI agent who’s on it.”
“FBI?”
“She’s a profiler from Quantico. She thinks it’s a serial killer, a black one. It seems only white people usually do this kind of thing.”
“Yeah, sick-ass white boys,” said Marshall, laughing. “So, if it’s important, what does it mean?”
“What I don’t know is why it’s relevant,” said Danny. “I don’t know a lot about skin color differences between the brothers.”
“Colorism,” said Marshall.
“There’s a word for it?” Danny was surprised by this.
“Yeah, a writer made it up. Danny, you’ve stepped into some deep shit, deep black shit.”
“I know. I caught the reactions of my partner and the FBI agent, who’s black, too, by the way. They seem to be bothered by the subject in general and hurt by memories.”
“Everybody’s got a story,” said Marshall. “I’ll tell you what I know about it, but you’ve been seeing it all your life. I guess it never hit you the same way because you were white.”
“So I’ve been told,” said Danny. “What’s your story?”
“Remember Ms. Rattin from Davison Elementary?” said Marshall without hesitation.
“Yeah, I remember. Third grade. Pretty lady.”
“I had a big ol’ crush on her. She was my favorite teacher with that long hair and those beautiful hazel eyes. Then one day, I overheard her talking to another teacher about her class. She said that some kids in her class were ‘as dumb as they were black.’ And she said it in that mean, nasty way that let me know she had a dislike for dark skin, my kind of skin.”
“Ms. Rattin was very light-skinned,” Danny said absently.
“Then about a year later I heard some teachers talking about her; they plotted to keep her from getting some kind of award. They made reference to her thinking she was too good already.” And now Marshall’s face took on that pained look Danny had seen before. “There are two revelations for black people,” he continued. “The first comes when you find out what it means to be black, and the second is when you find out what it means to be dark or light.”
“Light?” Danny asked.
“Yes, it goes both ways,” said Marshall. “A lot of light-skinned blacks get shit for not being dark enough. Remember Tommy, the kid whose father drove that beat-up old convertible?”
“Tommy Sanders,” Danny said, remembering the name. “He had freckles.”
“But he was black,” said Marshall. “The kids called him snowball, spotty, yellow-nigger, sweet pink, and all kinds of nasty stuff. I’m sad to say that I called him a few names myself. And that hurt look you talked about, the one your partner had on his face. I’ve seen that look on your face so many times, I’d like to forget them all.”
“Really?” said Danny, and in that instant he knew Marshall was probably right. He’d endured the worst kind of colorism. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“This all started with slavery, you know,” said Marshall. “When we were brought here, voluntarily or not, the races mixed, voluntarily or not. The slave masters treated their bastard kids better than their darker cousins, and the shit has just been carried on down through the years.”
Danny thought again about the victims and their faces. “And just what is the problem?” he asked.
“The lighter the skin, the better the person,” said Marshall. “That’s the stereotype. Reality is more complicated. And you know, a lot of the first really good jobs, doctor, teacher, lawyer, went to fair-skinned blacks who were more accepted by white society. Darker blacks had to take the backseat twice if you will, once to the white man and again to the light black man. Blacks of all colors married, but there was always a section of the race that intermarried and remained very light-skinned. Some even passed for white. My father told me about the parties with the paper bag by the door, and if you were darker than the bag, your ass couldn’t come in.”
“So, if my killer is all fucked up about color, what could have made him that way?” asked Danny.
“Could be a lot of things,” said Marshall. “These days, we’re all pretty much in denial about the shit. We’re so busy trying to make it, that we’ve just let it slip under the surface of everyday life, and that’s not a good place for something so painful.”
“My gut tells me that the color of the victims is not a coincidence,” said Danny. He took another drink of his beer. It was ever so slightly warmer from being in his hand for so long. “I think maybe the people involved were together for this reason.”
“Then you got yourself a real problem, my brother,” said Marshall.
Danny waited a moment, thinking, then asked, “Have you heard of the Castle Society?”
“Sure,” said Marshall. “My grandmother used to work at their parties as a servant. Why do you ask?”
“I’m not sure yet,” said Danny. “But it’s involved in my case somehow.”
Chemin came back in at that moment. She forced a smile, knowing that they’d been talking about something serious.
“Got them both to sleep,” she said. “That’s like a mommy holiday. So, everything okay?”
“Yeah, more or less,” said Marshall. “Danny’s come for some information about color. Chemin, tell Danny about your sister, Avon,” said Marshall.
Chemin’s face took on the by now familiar look of upset and hurt. “Marsh, why does he need to know that?”
“He wants to know about the color differences between black people,” said Marshall. “It’s for his case.”
“You can tell him,” said Chemin.
“It’s different for women,” said Marshall. “Help the man.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” said Danny. But he was interested in what Chemin had to say. He also saw that she wanted to speak on the subject.
The reference to her sister had taken hold of him. He’d met her sister, Avon before. Chemin was dark. But Avon was completely the opposite. He remembered thinking that maybe they were not even related or had different fathers, which they didn’t. Chemin’s mother was very light and her father was dark. The girls had been split between them almost right down the middle.
Chemin folded her arms and gave Marshall a look that suggested she’d get him later. “No, I’ll talk about it,” she said. “Avon and I got along fine when we were young,” she said, turning to Danny. “In fact, we were best friends in that way that only sisters can be. Then, when I turned twelve we both got interested in boys. In a nutshell, she got more attention than I did. In our culture, the lighter the woman, the more she’s favored by black men.”
Marshall cleared his throat.
“With some exceptions,” said Chemin, smiling at her husband. “And for a woman, that ability to attract men is everything. We’re told all our lives that our beauty is our value as women, and then we learn that some of us are more valuable than others. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it. The world is what it is and nothing is going to change that. All the light-skinned girls got the best boyfriends in school, were favored by certain sororities, got married first—and look.”
Chemin grabbed a magazine from a table and flipped through. She stopped at each ad featuring a black model, and in almost every case that model was light-skinned.
“The media lets you know what time it is every day,” she said. “See how most of them are either really fair or that weird-ass golden color?” She laughed.
“Or may
be you just think about shit too much,” Marshall laughed.
“No, I don’t,” said Chemin. “I know what I’m talking about.”
“This is too fuckin’ much,” said Danny. “Dark brothers get dogged, light brothers get dogged, for what? This thing is crazy.”
“Most of us try to be bigger than color, Danny,” said Chemin. Her face showed her sincerity. “We try, but a lot of times we fail. So the thing isn’t crazy. It’s human.”
“Finish the sister story,” said Marshall. “I never get tired of hearing this.”
“That’s because you’re sick,” said Chemin, giving him a love tap on the head. “Anyway, Avon and I started dating boys, and soon she began to think she was better than me. Or at least that’s what I thought. We never talked about it, but it was there, under our relationship, festering like a sickness. And then one day, we had a fight over, of all things, a sweater. She wanted to wear my red sweater because ‘it looked better on her,’ she said, and it wasn’t right for me. I knew what she meant. I’d heard that old saying about how dark girls shouldn’t wear red. I told her she couldn’t wear it, and she wore it on a date anyway, so I ripped one of hers to pieces. We had a terrible fight, hair-pulling, the whole bit. I called her a thief and she called me a black bitch. Not just a bitch, a black one, as if the word black made it worse. We didn’t speak for almost a year after that. We made up, but our relationship has never been the same.” She looked far away for a second, reclaiming the last of the memory. “What kind of case are you working that you need to know this?”
“A murder case,” I said. “All of my victims are light-skinned blacks.”
“Damn,” said Chemin. “I’m sorry.” She made this last statement after searching for something appropriate to say. “Does it mean anything?”
“I’m afraid it might mean everything,” said Danny. “This killer is sick in the head, and maybe he’s seeing shit that the rest of us can’t.”
“Killers usually do, don’t they?” said Marshall.
Chemin let out a little puff of air that echoed the exasperation Danny was feeling. Marshall said nothing. He just looked at Danny with the self-assured face of a friend.
“Whatever this whole thing is about,” said Marshall, “you can handle it.”
Danny nodded slightly, not knowing whether Marshall was talking about the case or the situation with his mother. He supposed that his friend meant both matters. In that regard he was grateful for his confidence.
Danny thanked Marshall and Chemin, then left them to their evening. He had brought a load of grief and heavy thinking on them, and he didn’t want them to suffer any more.
Danny stepped outside into the cool night and immediately his thoughts went back to his father and the terrible burden he was carrying. He vowed at that moment that he had to face up to it and soon.
He got into his car and pulled off. He was vaguely aware of the car bumping over the road. He was processing all that he’d had just heard from his friends.
“…it was my own people, not being my own people, and I felt like nothing.”
He heard Erik’s statement again. Danny saw millions of black people fighting against themselves and keeping it secret, like a shameful addiction.
Danny wondered if the deaths of the Bakers and Olittah Reese were what they seemed to be, revenge for lost wealth, or were born out of the affliction Marshall called colorism. And if it was, would it make the killer more or less deadly?
26
JOY ROAD
John and Lenora Baker sat with Olittah Reese talking quietly about something. Danny stood behind them straining to hear and worried that they would see him.
The Bakers looked robust and healthy and Ms. Baker wore a bright yellow hat. Olittah looked even better, sexy and vibrant as she laughed at something. Suddenly, Olittah Reese turned and winked at him. But now she was the dead Olittah, pale and water-damaged. Next to her, Danny saw his mother. Sorrow lined her pained visage and she held up her hands in a pleading gesture.
“Why, son?” she asked in sorrowful voice. Then she tumbled down a dark abyss, pulling the others with her….
Danny awoke in bed alone, breathing hard. He got up and went into the kitchen and poured a big glass of water. He wasn’t particularly thirsty, but needed to do something physical to remind himself that he was indeed awake.
Vinny had not called or left any message since her departure. He took this to mean that he should not call or leave a message at her sister’s. In his head, he saw them all sitting around, talking about him, making those excited sounds women make when they’re talking about something juicy. Worse were the pictures of Vinny in the arms and bed of another man, purging herself of guilt and celebrating her new life without him.
He wondered how he could mend his relationship with Vinny before it was too late. It’s a fucked-up thing to be a man, he thought, to realize that most of what you’re about is trying to figure out women—and you never will.
He decided to take his own advice and concentrate on the case. His evening with Marshall and Chemin had shaken him in ways that he could not fully explain. He’d always thought of black people as one people. Now, Danny was seeing them as gradations on a living line of color. Erik was very dark in complexion like Hamilton Grace and his sons; Marshall and Chemin were about the same dark color. Janis was a light brown, like Kelly, Hamilton’s wife. Jim Cole, his boss, was fair-skinned, and the victims were all even lighter than that.
And then, me, thought Danny. Next on the line was white itself.
He got a pad and wrote down what he knew about the case so far. It always helped to see the shape of what he was up against:
The first thing he noticed was that he had a lot more suspects than victims. The killer wasn’t a rabid dog, tearing his way through a list. He was cold, calculating, and sure of himself.
SUSPECTS
VICTIMS
Hamilton Grace (Lost millions. Disliked Bakers. Olittah Reese might have cost him in the election.)
The Bakers (Scammed their friends. Stole millions. John had hooker friend.)
Jordan Grace (Adopted. Overly protective of father.)
Olittah Reese (Solicited people for bogus company. Affair with judge.)
Logan Grace (Rebellious. Hates father?)
Reverend Boltman (Shady past. Violent assistants capable of killing.)
Virginia Stallworth (Lost money and social face.)
Oscar Stallworth (Connection to underworld.)
Danny thought that he could find the next victim by seeing who else had been involved with the company, but as far as he knew, only the Bakers and Olittah Reese had done the solicitations.
Then he wrote:
Money
Danny thought about the missing money that went through New Nubia. Everyone assumed the Bakers had stolen it, but in fact all of the money was never found.
Maybe the killer was looking for it. And maybe he was willing to kill anyone who he thought might have it.
That would explain the meticulous nature of the killer and why he might be asking his victims questions. Then he wrote:
Color
The skin tones of the suspects ran the gamut, from the darkness of Grace to the almost Caucasian hue of the Stallworths. But the victims were still all light-skinned. He wrote:
Baker thought Castle still existed.
Then Danny wrote:
What if it did?
“Stallworth,” said Danny to himself. Oscar and Virginia were such snobs and she had that picture of her family with the Castle Society prominently displayed in her home. So there was a history. And Virginia had made it a point to tell him that it didn’t exist anymore. He might have suspected Hamilton Grace, but he was too dark.
“Too dark,” said Danny out loud as if he needed to hear it. And then he went back to bed.
Danny did not get any sleep before the morning came. He drifted off now and then, but the fear of another nightmare about his mother would pump adrenaline into his blood a
nd he’d wake right up. Finally, he hustled out of bed and went into work early.
Thirteen hundred always seemed spooky early in the day, and this was no exception. Behind the clean interior was a long history of crime, death and struggle. In the academy, Danny had heard stories of the place being haunted, and he believed every one of them. Danny didn’t think the troubled souls on both sides of the badge would ever rest peacefully.
He entered the office and was surprised to find Janis already there alone, looking at some papers. He said hello, then sat down at his desk and started to read the case file again.
The two sat in silence for a while, not looking at each other. In the distance, Danny heard sounds of other people in the building.
“You don’t like me, do you?” asked Janis.
Danny looked up at Janis and was surprised to see her smiling a little.
“I’m not sure,” said Danny. “But you seem like a good cop.”
“I didn’t come to take over your case.”
“Doesn’t matter. You did. You and your boss, but I’m a big boy. I can still do my job. But when I get this bastard, all the newspapers will care about is that the case got closed after the FBI got into it.”
Janis adjusted her glasses. “And that bothers you?”
“No,” said Danny. “The people who matter in the Department will know the truth.”
“And what if I catch him first?” asked Janis with another little smile.
“Then the newspapers will have it right for once,” said Danny.
Danny went back to his list and Janis read from a stack of papers. He wasn’t even sure if she respected him at all. Like all feds, she was hard to read. They must teach them that, he thought.
“I have a profile of the killer for you,” she said to Danny in a matter-of-fact tone. “I spent all last night putting it together.”
“A serial killer profile?” asked Danny. There was a note of challenge in his voice.
Color of Justice Page 19
